Hi all! I will be speaking at aWashington Lawyers for the Arts workshop on personality rights (rights of publicity) for artists atAda’s Technical Books and Cafein Seattle on September 24, 2019. Particularly, I will be speaking about issues artists may encounter in seeking to protect and monetize their names, images, and other personality rights—both in the U.S. and abroad, as well as how to prevent the risk of misappropriating other persons’ personality rights.

I am happy to announce that I will be speaking at a Washington Lawyers for the Arts workshop at Ada’s Technical Books and Cafe in Seattle on May 29, 2019 about online copyright protection matters for artists. Particularly, I will be speaking about how artists can obtain protection and enforce rights in their works in the U.S. and abroad, as well as how to best protect their works on major online social media and retail platforms such as Google, Facebook, Pinterest, and Amazon.

Further information about the event and tickets can be found here. Hope you can make it!

A number of news outlets (here and here) recently reported that the Philippines is considering a new approach to deter online copyright infringement, namely, establishing a rights holder notification system that will revoke a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) operating license upon their failure to remove infringing content. Titled the Philippine Online Infringement Act (POI Act), the proposed legislation will enable the Philippines’ Intellectual Property Office (IPO) to petition the National Telecommunication Commission (NTC) to cancel an ISP’s operating license should they fail to remove online infringing content upon prior notice from the IPO.

The POI Act was proposed based on the Philippine government’s inability to deter online copyright infringement on privately hosted ISPs based on the lack of prior ISP enforcement incentives. It is also the Philippines’ first attempt to adopt an extrajudicial rights holder online copyright infringement notification system (aka a notice and takedown system – see further information here).

While notice and takedown systems have been adopted by a number of countries (e.g. U.S., Australia, and South Korea, etc.), and including government agency oversight in such systems like that under the proposed POI Act exists in other countries (Chile and New Zealand, to name a few), the POI Act’s provision of ISP operating license cancellation procedures to incentivize ISP copyright enforcement appears to be the first of its kind.

So How Will the POI Act Work?

The POI Act provides that a copyright owner or their exclusive licensee, whether local or foreign, who believes their work(s) has been infringed online by a Philippine-hosted site can submit a notification of such infringement to the IPO. Such notices must identify the location of the infringement, the work(s) being infringed, and the copyright owner or licensee’s contact information. The IPO will then evaluate the notice and notify the ISP in question of the infringement if found to be valid. Should the notified ISP not remove the claimed infringing content within ten (10) days of receipt of the IPO notice, the IPO will notify the NTC, who then may terminate the ISP’s operating license following a hearing. Under the POI Act, the NTC is granted the authorization to terminate an ISP’s operator license if the cancellation of the license is deemed “proper” and “meritorius”. Neither “proper” and “meritorius” are defined under the POI Act.

What’s the Takeaway?

While it is unclear as to if and when the POI Act will be enacted, its proposed reforms represent a new approach to deter online copyright infringement that has the potential to be a blueprint for other countries with online copyright infringement problems. Further, as it is accessible to rights holders from the Philippines and abroad, it also gives rights holders a potentially beneficial extrajudicial cross-border enforcement tool to protect their rights. Time will tell whether the POI Act will be implemented.

As a part of the People’s Republic of China’s multi-year overhaul of its Civil Code, multiple Chinese state news outlets reported recently that the National People’s Congress (NPC) published draft amendments to the Civil Code’s personality rights (rights of publicity) provisions, and is collecting public opinions on such proposed legislation. Currently, Article 99 and 100 of the General Principles of Civil Law provide legal protections for personal names and likeness (right of portrait) as personality rights. While the draft Civil Code does not appear to be currently translated into English for review, such proposed reforms have been reported to provide further protections for “personal dignity.”

The NPC is collecting public opinions on such reforms up until November 3, 2018.

Last month, I had the privilege of being quoted in Bloomberg BNA‘s article on ongoing North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) talks on copyright and digital trade. Particularly, I discussed the current status of Mexico’s online copyright environment, and the problems faced by rights holders in seeking extrajudicial online enforcement of rights in their works under existing Mexican copyright law.

*Note* The Meeting below has been cancelled. Further information is available here.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced late last week that it will hold a public meeting on July 17, 2017 at its Alexandria, Virginia headquarters on measuring the impact of voluntary initiatives to reduce online intellectual property infringement.

As private online retail and social media platforms such as Amazon and Facebook are becoming the main channels in which people shop and socialize respectively, voluntary IP enforcement measures taken by these and other online parties are increasingly shaping how IP is enforced online—with both positive and negative reception. Google is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Google currently handles millions of online copyright and trademark takedown requests a day, up from merely dozens a day just a decade ago. Based on its heightened role as one of the Internet’s main search engines and online service providers, Google has developed its own voluntary initiatives to deter trademark and copyright infringement including removal of listings that have received repeated notices of IP infringement. While arguably taken to protect against any contributory liability (see17 U.S.C. § 512(i)(1)(A)), Google’s voluntary enforcement measures such as its removal of repeat infringers is shaping how IP is protected online and how content rights holders address online IP protection. Despite such influence, Google has in the past also faced scorn by such rights holders for not going far enough with other voluntary measures, such as demoting search results of known infringers.

The July 17th meeting is a part of the USPTO’s recent outreach efforts to such interested parties concerning their voluntary online IP enforcement regimes, and is intended to evaluate how such private parties are addressing online IP enforcement—both and home and abroad. Topics to be discussed at the meeting include (among others) evaluating the effectiveness of self-regulatory regimes, presenting case studies of certain private sector initiatives, discussing the role of voluntary undertakings in raising consumer awareness and stemming revenue flows to bad actors (i.e. infringers), as well as others.

A recent story out of Ireland highlights the importance of understanding territorial trademark protection requirements when registering trademarks—both at home and abroad.

Techdirt and The Spirits Business recently reported about Leo Mansfield, an entrepreneur from Northwestern Ireland who opened a retail outlet in Clifden, Ireland in 2009 called Conn O’Mara, a play on the name of the geographical region where the store is located (CONNEMARA). Since opening his store, Mansfield has decided to produce and sell beer under the store’s name, and filed a trademark application for CONN O’MARA at the Irish Patent Office for beer and alcohol beverages including whisky in Class 32 and 33 (Trademark No. 253618).

U.S.-based Beam Suntory, a subsidiary of Japan beverage behemoth Suntory, filed a notice of opposition at the Irish Patent Office against Mansfield’s CONN O’MARA trademark application citing his trademark’s likelihood of confusion with its CONNEMARA trademark for whisky owned by its locally-owned distillery, Cooley Distillery. Mr. Mansfield has since begun a public relations and petition campaign to contest Beam Suntory’s trademark opposition. Specifically, Mansfield has made statements that CONNEMARA is the name of the geographical region in which his store and the Cooley Distillery are located, and as such, Beam Suntory cannot monopolize use of a geographical region name as a trademark. He has even gone so far as starting a public petition against Bean Suntory’s opposition proceeding.

Mr. Mansfield defense of his store is admirable. However, his story drives home the importance of brand owners understanding differences between trademark protection requirements from country-to-country.

If Mr. Mansfield case had occurred in the U.S., he may have been able to defend against Beam Suntory’s opposition and obtain registration for his trademark. With limited exceptions, the U.S.’ federal trademark act (Lanham Act; 15 U.S.C. § 1052(e)(2)) prohibits registration of a trademark that is “primarily geographically descriptive” of the goods of its owner. As such, Beam Suntory’s CONNEMARA trademark, as used by Cooley Distillery, would not be entitled to protection in the U.S., meaning Beam Suntory likely could not have brought forth an opposition.

Unfortunately, Ireland provides no similar registration restrictions on geographically descriptive trademarks. Ireland’s trademark legislation, the 1996 Trade Marks Act, does not bar registration of a trademark for being primarily geographically descriptive. As such, Bean Suntory’s trademark rights to CONNEMARA in Ireland are not only valid, but will likely prevent Mr. Mansfield from successfully defending against Bean Suntory’s opposition.

What’s The Takeaway? Brand owners wishing to seek trademark protection for their brands in multiple countries need to consider whether their brand names and logos would be entitled to trademark protection not only in their own country, but also in their expected foreign markets of expansion. Working with a qualified trademark attorney with multi-jurisdictional strategizing experience can help to ensure differences in trademark protection across jurisdictions are taken into consideration.

As reported in multiple news outlets, the U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) published a Notice of Inquiry concerning a USCO study to review current U.S. laws protecting moral rights of creators of original works—namely the rights of attribution and rights of integrity, as well as evaluate reforms to provide additional protections for such rights. Separate from copyright protections, moral rights are intended to preserve the relationship between an artist and their work, regardless of the expiration of copyright protections under applicable law and any transfer(s) of copyright title. While recognized in many foreign jurisdictions as rights available to creators of all forms of copyright-protected works, the U.S. only recognizes moral rights for creators of visual art works under specific conditions codified in the Visual Artists Rights Act (17 U.S.C. § 106A) (VARA).

I am honored to announce that I will be returning to my alma mater—Gonzaga University School of Law to speak on state, federal and foreign trademark prosecution and licensing for cannabis businesses at the Second Annual Gonzaga Intellectual Property Merit Scholarship CLE on September 23, 2016 in Spokane, Washington. We have an amazing panel with speakers on a number of interesting IP issues. Hope you can make it, and if you cannot, it will be webcasted so watch it online. See you there!

It was reported in several news outlets this week that Singapore’s Ministry of Law and Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS) are commencing a public consultation concerning reforms to Singapore’s Copyright Act. As detailed in a Consultation Paper released by both agencies, the consultation intends to obtain public feedback concerning multiple proposed reforms to the Copyright Act that will have a direct impact on rights holders and interested parties in Singapore and abroad including the establishment of a voluntary copyright registration system, expansion of copyright fair use exceptions and allowable technological protection measures, amending rights of attribution requirements, as well as several others.

The consultation will run from August 23, 2016 to October, 24 2016 and rights holders, impacted businesses, as well as the general public, are encouraged to submit feedback via designated online forms available here.